Drive-by Critic

I am new to this board and late to this discussion, so I don't know if anyone is going to see this post. This discussion was extremely informative for me. I also think a post - good, bad, or in between - should be detailed. The "reviews" in the regional sections of the WashPost drive me nuts. All they do is run through the menu. I've had very few gripes - maybe a half dozen in the 20.5 years that I've lived here - that were serious enough to warrant a complaint. And I would only complain if the restaurant was otherwise so good that I'd want to return. Why bother complaining about a place you wouldn't go back to anyway? I wanted to let the owners here know that I have tried speaking up about a problem, but I'm now reluctant to do so. Why? Because I don't WANT a freebie. I want to get the sense that the management actually cares about the problem and will do something about it. I don't expect perfection (which is why we give a restaurant THREE shots at our hard-earned money - money that is very scarce when you both work for nonprofits - before giving up on them). Still, it is hard to understand how some problems can occur in the first place, if a restaurant really cares about its guests. A freebie isn't going to solve the problem of cigarette smoke wafting from the bar into the dining room. It should have dawned on the owners - who obviously spent a large amount of thought and money on the design and decor - that if the glass wall separating the bar from the dining room didn't extend all the way to the ceiling, that the smoke would not be contained to the bar. Are they going to re-design the restaurant (e.g., extend the wall to the ceiling or add stronger exhaust fans in the bar)? My guess is that they - like auto companies - estimate the amount of damage that will result from the decision to do or not do X, Y, or Z. How many people will be burned to a crisp from exploding gas tanks? How many customers will we lose if some smoke gets into the dining room? But for problems that are easily fixed - I often have the sense that they are just trying to placate me rather than really caring about the issue. I don't like being humored or bought-off. I want to know that the next time I frequent that restaurant, I won't encounter the same problem.

We used to adore Addie's and Black's Bar and Kitchen. The latter started to lose it about a year ago - I had a dish that simply didn't work. The ingredients didn't work together at all. We have a 3-strikes rule. We figure one bad meal can be a fluke, an off-night, a bad dish on an otherwise solid menu. Second time, the restaurant is definitely slipping, and third time, it is off our list. We never got to three strikes with Black's because we struck the entire Black's empire off our list when they refused to give us reservations at the place in Garrett Park so my handicapped mother wouldn't have to stand and wait for a table. They were absolutely inflexible about it, claiming that if we drove up right away there would be no wait. We live 10 minutes from Garrett Park and it was just before 6 p.m. (earlier than we wanted to eat, but...) so we ran up there - and every table was occupied. There were two places to sit at wait - at the extremely cramped little bar, which sits directly between the kitchen and the tables, so the waitstaff was squeezing by every few seconds, or a rickety chair out in the cold, empty hallway. I don't miss them (or the overly-warm wine they served at Black's, because they didn't have proper storage...). I also don't miss their arrogant attitude towards customer preference. They have a good burger, but refuse to give you steak sauce - I hate catsup. The waitstaff were very apologetic about the chef's inflexible insistence that people eat his food his way (must have interned with Carole Greenwood). Though I did enjoy the occasional meltdown in the kitchen (chef screaming at the top of his lungs). We called it the "Floor Show."